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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

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Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#351

Post by cmrdporcupine »

derektank wrote: post #306
rockskon wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of time will let the U.S. - a country of 348 million people - replicate what China - a country with 1.4 billion people - a can do with manufacturing. This isn't "working harder". This isn't "rebuilding infrastructure". This isn't "training people in trades". The numbers are so cartoonishly lopsided as to be a non-starter for categorically replacing Chinese manufacturing.

600 million people live in North America. 1 billion people live in the Americas. Another billion live on the Pacific rim in non-Chinese countries. Establishing regulatory harmony across all those countries is obviously not possible in the same way it is in a single authoritarian state, but if the US made it a priority to create a trade bloc capable of replicating China’s manufacturing capacity, it probably could.

Establishing regulatory harmony is not only not possible but the current regime is working in exactly the opposite direction.

If the US wants to take on China, and actually needs Canada's help to do it -- I can assure you they just set themselves back 10-20 years from achieving that. We no longer have any interest.

The labour forces of Mexico and Canada are not at the US's disposal for these kind of games anymore. For several decades we have been exploited by the US for low wages and cheap resources -- and now there's a regime that's making cheap political points by accusing us of the opposite while trying to emmiserate our populace. So, yeah, no thanks.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#352

Post by Braxton1980 »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #348
ryandrake wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something about having the whole supply chain in one place I can't find the source but I thought I read somewhere that the major manufacturing cities in China are all geographically laid out like giant assembly lines. The companies that process the raw materials are located mostly inland, then the companies that form those raw materials into metal and plastic stock are next door, and then the companies that take th…

Sorry, but this sounds more like a myth, or at least heavily exaggerated. Similar to how Japan often gets romanticized. Organizing the entire chain geographically at the scale you described (inter-city) doesn't bring huge cost advantages by itself. In China labor has historically been cheap, so the transport cost between regions was never the dominant factor anyway. Most industrial clusters in China formed organicall…

Is the labor cheap in China or are you comparing it US salaries?

Can a person working in a Chinese tech factory for a major US company afford a reasonable place to live a reasonable distance, food, some entertainment, and have savings?

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#353

Post by jajuuka »

mikepurvis wrote: post #40
jajuuka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there was a rush during the early Intel transition because they were dirt cheap computers you can upgrade yourself and even dual boot Windows. I feel like there was another big bump for them as a set top boxes to run XBMC or something. Might be wrong though. M1 release also saw the Mini's be a cheap entry point to seeing what Apple Silicon could do.

Even to this day there aren't really a ton of options for a non-devkit, non-router arm64 machine that you can use as a desktop workstation.

I was happy to see that x64 mini computers have really come along. Some of the units from China are really impressive with some exposed full PCI-E buses.

Arm64 is still limited for sure, but with Snapdragon and Windows finally committing to ARM I think the future is bright for that. Just not here yet.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#354

Post by F7F7F7 »

sigmar wrote: post #159
pama wrote: post #69

Mac minis are sold out in NYC these days because everyone gets them to try out openclaw. Even if this move by Apple is unrelated to the recent demand, it certainly was timed right for the policy and market makers.

It's so funny to me that HN seems convinced that artists have a sudden renewed interest in desktop computers, when LLMs have been driving mac mini sales for more than a year

I'm a product exec now but used to be designer and lead UX teams. Even though I don't use those skills as much nowadays it's still a almost daily hobby of mine.

Like the rest of HN (maybe it's HN's fault!) I managed to convince myself that I not only needed a Mac Mini desktop but also a 4090 rig for AI.

The 4090 hasn't been booted up in 9 months and the Mac Mini is now the world's most amazing 10GBE NAS server. My older M1 Max Macbook Pro and underpowered newer Macbook Air are the only things I use.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#355

Post by hamandcheese »

superxpro12 wrote: post #325
mikestorrent wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to brand efficiency and structure-at-scale as "authoritarian"; how painfully American of you. I know it's a completely foreign concept for anyone that has grown up in America, but it's actually within the realm of human possibility for the government and the individual to be aligned and want the same thing. Typically this is evidenced by tremendous social progress, which we see in evidence with the rap…

For all the progress, you lose me immediately with the "social credit" system. If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent. Only need to look to the recent changes in Hong-Kong and the obviously hostile takeover of a democratic government to see how "pure" these changes really are.

> If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent.

This makes no sense. It is possible for a totalitarian government which is threatened by dissent and concepts like "democracy" to also work in the interest of improving overall quality of life.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#356

Post by Saline9515 »

xtn wrote: post #337
superxpro12 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all the progress, you lose me immediately with the "social credit" system. If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent. Only need to look to the recent changes in Hong-Kong and the obviously hostile takeover of a democratic government to see how "pure" these changes really are.

There are bad things in China, but there is no "social credit" system being used.

Yes there is. Why deny it? It's pretty public. In this french documentary, which was later aired on the parliamentary tv channel, the author films his daily life with his chinese wife, who has a social credit account, and interviews officials speaking openly about it. It's 4 years old.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma6txLM_LLs

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#358

Post by shimman »

superxpro12 wrote: post #325
mikestorrent wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to brand efficiency and structure-at-scale as "authoritarian"; how painfully American of you. I know it's a completely foreign concept for anyone that has grown up in America, but it's actually within the realm of human possibility for the government and the individual to be aligned and want the same thing. Typically this is evidenced by tremendous social progress, which we see in evidence with the rap…

For all the progress, you lose me immediately with the "social credit" system. If there was really true 'progress', then you wouldn't need a one-party system that suppresses all dissent. Only need to look to the recent changes in Hong-Kong and the obviously hostile takeover of a democratic government to see how "pure" these changes really are.

Dude come on, the US already has a social credit system. Where do you think China got the idea of credit scores from? Try getting a good loan in the US if your credit score is under 400. You're barred from having certain jobs if you don't have a good credit score.

Get some new talking points, you're like 40 years out of date.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#359

Post by nerdsniper »

galangalalgol wrote: post #334
bb88 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. --Lord Acton. It's not really so much one's belief system as it is what happens when one gets power -- and that's hard to predict regardless of the ideology.

Not really. Seeing what people do when they get power is as predictable as what they do when given meth.

Eh. Maybe. But I do see people who are pretty consistent when they have power. It may be somewhat unpredictable before they get power, but somewhat more predictable once you’ve seen how they act with it.

This principle of relative consistency is baked into how I test employees for management and friends for trust, and in the past, roommates as well. Though I do acknowledge potential for growth as well, but in my older age I generally also need to see evidence of motivation to give strong benefit of the doubt wrt possible trajectory.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#360

Post by Braxton1980 »

kccqzy wrote: post #275
827a wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to be clear about one thing (which I believe is also raised in the book): Much of this is the direct result of Apple investing literally a quarter trillion dollars and exporting critical western IP toward developing Chinese advanced manufacturing capability (among other American technology companies). The story of startups only being able to manufacture in China is a cute tale that is true for startups. For Appl…

A company like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc). In the absence of government intervention, Apple has determined that investing a quarter trillion dollars is the cheap choice; getting the same result in the United States would probably need much much more than a quarter trillion dollars worth…

> Acompany like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc).

Isn't that massive? You make it seem like it's not important but look at Trump's tariffs that are connected to geopolitics. The US's relation with China could worsen to a point where certain imports are banned.

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